After news this week of US wire rod producers filing an AD/CVD petition against 10 countries (Belarus, Italy, South Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom), sources say traders have become more flexible with import wire rod offer prices to the US. The US Department of Commerce will decide whether to continue with the investigation and if so, release preliminary margins within 20 days of the filing.
While the alleged dumping margins listed in the petition are extreme (up to 821.40 percent for Russian imports) and unlikely to be reflected in the US DOC’s preliminary determination, sources say the “optics” of the petition have traders scrambling to get orders in beforehand. As such, they have dropped their offers to US customers by about $0.50 cwt. ($10/nt or $11/mt) this week, and sources indicate the flexibility could continue, with or without lower offers at the CFR level.